Search form

Scroll To Top
alan-cumming-my-old-school-animated-documentary-film-thumbnail.jpg
Film

Watch Alan Cumming Embody Brandon Lee in This My Old School Clip

Watch Alan Cumming Embody Brandon Lee in This My Old School Clip

The "Brandon Lee" scandal is being brought to life thanks to the talents of the bi icon himself, Alan Cumming! 

So what do you do when you're making a documentary about one of the wildest and greatest scandals your old secondary school has probably ever gone through, but the subject of your doc refuses to be filmed? You hire a brilliant actor like bisexual icon Alan Cumming to perform, of course!

Premiering at Sundance earlier this year, Magnolia Pictures' My Old School is a hybrid real-world/animated documentary that tells the story of Brian MacKinnon -- or as he's more infamously known to the world, "Brandon Lee" -- a man in the mid-90s who pretended to be a 16-year-old student attending Scotland's Bearsden Academy even though he was actually in his thirties.

One of MacKinnon's former schoolmates, Juno McLeod, directed the doc using real interviews from MacKinnon and others closely involved during the scandal, but when MacKinnon refused to be filmed for it, they enlisted the help of master actor Alan Cumming to embody MacKinnon himself. And the results were astounding!

"In 1993, 16-year-old Brandon Lee enrolled at Bearsden Academy, a secondary school in a well-to-do suburb of Glasgow, Scotland. What followed over the next two years would become the stuff of legend," the documentary's official description reads. "Brandon had been privately tutored in Canada while he accompanied his mother, an opera diva, on tour before her tragic death. The preternaturally bright student surprised teachers by blazing toward his goal of entering medical school, displaying a wealth of knowledge beyond his years. Brandon found friends despite his initial awkwardness, taking bullied students under his wing, introducing classmates to seminal retro bands, and even starring in the school's production of South Pacific. But then his unbelievable secret was revealed."

My Old School premieres in theaters on Friday, July 22!

RELATED | Watch the Exclusive First Trailer For Gay Horror Movie They/Them

Latest Stories

Raffy Ermac

Raffy is a Los Angeles-based writer, editor, video creator, critic, and the digital director of Out.

Raffy is a Los Angeles-based writer, editor, video creator, critic, and the digital director of Out.